Commerce IG frets delays in transition of space monitoring from DoD

WASHINGTON — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office of Space Commerce (OSC) needs to revise its current program to both speed its processes and set “realistic” goals in the face schedule delays in taking on the Pentagon’s mission to warn non-military satellite operators of potential crashes, according to the Commerce Department’s Inspector General.

The IG further is urging OSC to move out more aggressively to craft a plan to set binding rules to manage the ever increasing amount of on-orbit traffic — despite the fact, as pointed out to Breaking Defense by senior NOAA officials, that Congress has yet to give OSC the legal authority to do so.

The recommendations are the result of an audit to assess OSC’s “progress in providing space situational awareness data and space traffic management services in accordance with Space Policy Directive-3,” the IG explained in a report [PDF] quietly released on July 30.

“Space Policy Directive-3, National Space Traffic Management Policy (SPD-3),” was issued in June 2018 by the Trump administration, and mandated that the Commerce Department take the burden of providing space situational awareness (SSA) data to commercial, civil and foreign entities from the Defense Department to allow the US military to concentrate on keeping tabs on adversary space activities.

Continued Delays

The OSC effort to develop the capability to monitor space objects and provide notifications of potential close approaches to civil and commercial space operators from the get-go was bedeviled by bureaucratic tensions within NOAA, interagency frictions and budgetary woes in part due to a skeptical Congress.

The IG report notes that the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act mandated that DoD was to stop issuing warnings to non-military operators except for national security purposes as of Jan. 1, 2024. However, the OSC’s most recent plan sets Sept. 30 to roll out an “initial operational capability” for its Traffic Coordination System for Space, or TraCSS; and the IG report says this deadline is likely to be missed.

Indeed, the IG assesses that OSC may even be unable to implement its backup plan to instead offer a less robust “minimum viable product” — defined as “the ability to execute conjunction screening and produce conjunction data messages on a 4-hour cadence,” versus DoD’s current once every eight hours — if reaching initial capability isn’t feasible.

Up to now DoD has continued to provide SSA data to industry for no charge. But further delay could result in a service gap for space operators, the IG report warns.

“According to a DOD official from U.S. Space Force, Space Systems Command, if priorities change due to a national security concern and TraCSS is not operational, critical spaceflight safety services currently provided by DOD may cease. Without an updated, realistic program timeline, we conclude stakeholders are unable to plan accordingly and make informed decisions,” the report found.

Thus IG offered OSC three recommendations related to scheduling, staffing and industry engagement, including: “Revise the TraCSS program timeline using agile best practices to include realistic dates, capabilities, and actual progress.” Senior NOAA and OSC officials, in an report annex, concurred with all three.

Need For Long-Term Planning

Part of the reason for the issuance of Space Policy Directive-3 was to establish authority for the Commerce Department to provide government oversight of new types of commercial space activities that fall between the current regulatory cracks, such as on-orbit refueling and repair of spacecraft. OSC was tapped by the Commerce Department as the organization to undertake that role, and to establish new rules of the road for space traffic management (STM).

However, the authority for an administration body to set legally binding regulations can only be conferred by Congress not White House policy. And the years-long effort by Commerce to get legislative approval has been beset by deep and long-standing disagreements between government agencies and among congressional leaders; not just about which US government agency should be responsible, but also what sort of regulations, if any, on commercial space operators are required.

The IG report noted that OSC officials believe “implementation of a new approach to STM to be at least 10 years in the future, given challenges to regulation and standardization of international and commercial space assets.” Nonetheless, the auditors chide OSC because it “does not have a long-term plan” to ensure that responsibilities assigned to the Commerce Department by Space Policy Directive-3 are met.

While OSC’s current plan “includes the development of initial guidelines and standards for data and information exchange, it does not address development of safety standards, behavioral norms, and conjunction prevention protocols, which could further mitigate potential conjunctions beyond just notifications to space operators,” the report explains.

The IG therefore calls on OSC to develop a long-term plan that includes specific proposals for future binding rules, and update the plan on a regular basis.

NOAA officials, however, objected to the IG recommendations, arguing that it has no “management” authority from Congress and that, at the moment, its efforts are focused on promoting voluntary national and international “coordination” of space traffic.

“Acknowledging that STM involves management of space traffic — including enforcement, regulatory and licensing authorities and activities, and international governance structures — absent legislative relief or additional statutory authority, NOAA cannot pursue STM. NOAA will await guidance and authority from Congress to address those aspects of the recommendation,” the agency said in its official response.

“The goal of the TraCSS program is to enhance spaceflight safety as a distributor of SSA safety data. As articulated in our published vision for global SSA coordination, OSC is committed to maintaining an open and transparent system that enables global coordination with other SSA providers and ensures reliable and efficient services to global spacecraft operators,” Janice Starzyk, OSC deputy director, told Breaking Defense in an email Monday.

“True global space traffic management would require close international collaboration on governing rules and regulations, as well as defined authorities to compel orbital movements if needed. There is, as of yet, no plan for a coordinated set of global regulation and interconnected safety services. TraCSS is designed as a step towards this goal, enhancing spaceflight safety as a distributor of SSA safety data,” she added.